Dispatches: Eyewitness to a Sudden and Bloody Liberation

Slowly, hesitantly, the four tanks and two armored fighting vehicles of the Northern Alliance's Guards Brigade rolled forward from their advance position 28 miles north of Kabul. It was last Monday afternoon, before the capital fell, and the crews were tensed for a barrage of enemy fire. But none came, so they pushed on faster, rumbling down narrow lanes in thick clouds of dust before turning onto the Old Road and heading south toward Kabul. This was once agricultural land, but now the landscape was lunar and blitzed: the remaining trees were shredded and the fields were pocked with the 10-ft.-deep...